Scott descended the escalator marked “Baggage Claim” and “Ground Transportation.” He was surprised to find Logan waiting at the bottom of it. “What are you doing here?” he asked, giving his lover a quick hug.

“I figured I’d save the Foundation the cab fare,” Logan answered. “Fits in with the austerity program. I don’t like to do anything that makes Worthington happy, but I decided to make an exception this time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” They smiled at each other. “Plus I figured if you wanted to talk about it, I’d give you a chance before you get home. You know how it is. As soon as you get there, half the school and most of the team will be all over you with assorted demands. While we’re driving, it’s just you and me.”“Thanks, Logan.”

He looked towards the baggage carousel. “You don’t have any luggage to pick up, do you?”

Scott shook his head. “It would have been nice if I could have just packed Alex up and brought him home with me, but it wasn’t that easy.”

“How did it go?” Logan asked, once they were in the car.

“It was hard.”

“I’ll bet. Would he talk to you?”

“Yeah, he talked a lot. He’s angry. Bitter."

"You expected that, eh?"

"Yeah. No surprise there. But that wasn’t all, at least I don’t think so. I felt like there was something there between us, something more. Some connection. I don’t know. Maybe I was just imagining it. Maybe I just wanted it enough that I imagined it was there.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Funny. He asked that, too. First thing.” Scott sighed. “No, not at all. I kept looking at him, looking for that. Just wanting some glimpse of my little brother in this... this man, this stranger sitting there. I never saw him.” He shook his head, remembering. “I didn’t know him at all. Not just by looks, I mean. By who he is, the person he grew to become. I told him I wanted to get him out. He thought I meant right then and there. As in, kill all the guards and take him with me. That’s what he thought I was going to do. And he thought it was a great idea.”

“He’s trouble, Scott. He’s gonna wreak havoc with the X-Men if you ever do get him out.”

“I know. I don’t doubt that. I think I can handle him, though. At least I hope I can. And I feel like I’ve got to try.”

“Did you find out what his gift is?”

“Yeah. Some kind of force thing. It comes out of his hands. Maybe it’s related to mine. Logan – there’s something about Alex and me. Our powers don’t affect each other. That’s why when I looked at him – right after I killed my father – nothing happened to Alex. I blasted him and nothing happened. He figured it out. He tried his on me while the guard wasn’t looking. It didn’t hurt. And then he told me to look at him. Unfiltered.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah.” Neither said anything for a while, both of them looking at the road. “Just for a minute, but it was really something. It felt... important. Profound. Compelling. He’s the only person in the world I can see unassisted. The only one who can look me in the eye. I think I need him in my life.” Scott looked down. “He hates me,” he said, after a while. “He thought I was going to come spring him, back when we were kids. And when I didn’t, he decided I must have died. Now he thinks I’ve been living in luxury while he’s been in prison. And the worst part is he’s right.”

“You haven’t had it so easy.”

“What did you think of me when you first came here? Spoiled rich guy, right?” Logan didn’t say anything. “Well, that’s what Alex thinks, too.” He thought some more. “He kept saying ‘my father’ and ‘my mother’ to talk about our parents. You know? Like he was talking to someone outside his family, not his brother.”

“You mean like a dig? Like saying you weren’t his brother anymore?”

“No, it wasn’t purposive. He kept correcting himself. It was just that we are strangers to each other. He talked to me like he would to a stranger, and then he’d remember. It meant something to me that he kept correcting himself like that, that he kept trying to think of me as his brother. It made me feel like there is still something between us, but he didn’t know what to do with it, whatever our connection is. I don’t know what to do with it, either.”

“Why did he confess? Did he tell you?”

“To protect me. So I wouldn’t go to prison. He thought they’d go easier on him, because he was so young.” Scott swallowed hard. “It must have been hell for him. He was such a little kid, such a young thirteen. Maximum security facility for violent juveniles. You can imagine what the rest of the inmates were like.” They drove in silence for a few minutes. “He wrote home,” Scott continued after a while. “Wrote to our mother, every week. She never answered, never visited him. Not once, in five years.”

“She should meet Oliver’s mother. They could get together and start a cold, heartless bitch club.”

“She thought he’d killed her husband.”

“Yeah, well he didn’t. And he was thirteen. You did, and it was an accident. You were still her kids.”

Scott didn’t say anything for a while. “He... he said something, something that sounded like he doesn’t just hate me.”

“What?”

“He told me he still has this thing. I’d given it to him. I don’t even remember doing it, but he said he we’d been to this toy store and he’d wanted it and I’d spent my allowance to get it for him. And he kept it.” Scott stopped for a minute to compose himself. “He said he still has it, that it’s the one thing left from his childhood.”

“What is it?”

“A superhero action figure. Ironic, huh?”

******************************************************************

The buzzer woke Adam. He got out of bed, pulling a bathrobe around him. A quick glance verified that Ezra was still sleeping. “Who could that be?” he asked himself, aloud, as he walked to the door.

“Jean-Paul! What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in? I have to talk to you. I’m sorry it’s so late. I had nowhere else I could go.”

“Of course. Come in. What’s wrong?”

Jean-Paul didn’t say anything, but as soon as the door was closed he threw his arms around Adam. Hesitant at first, Adam returned the embrace and they held each other. Jean-Paul let go of Adam after a minute, saying “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked again.

“I did something. Something terrible. But I don’t feel terrible. I know it was wrong, part of me feels that, feels bad. But mostly I feel... successful. Triumphant. Happy. I’m so confused. I have to talk to someone. I can’t tell anyone but you. I’m sorry,” he said again. “I shouldn’t burden you with this. And it’s late and... I didn’t know where else to go, who else to turn to. No one can know what I did.”

“It’s okay. I owe you one. You listened to me when no one else could know.” He took Jean-Paul by the hand and they walked over to the couch. “Sit down. What happened?”

“I got rid of Rick Kapell. He’s not a threat anymore.”

Adam took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, after a minute, nodding slowly. “We can handle this, if we work together. I think the Outpost is the best place for you for now. Don’t tell them anything. Just fly straight there tonight. Tell Wendy and Arthur you’ll explain later. We’ll work out what to say to them after we know more. Ezra and I will join you soon. I’ll stay here long enough to find out if they’re looking for you. What kind of evidence is there? Fingerprints? Does Canada have an extradition treaty with the U.S.?”

“Adam! Stop, stop. He’s alive. I didn’t kill him.”

“Thank God!” Adam sighed in obvious relief. And then added, after a minute, “What did you do to him?”

“Blackmailed him, I guess. I took pictures of him, pictures he won’t want seen.”

“What kind of pictures?”

“Sexual.”

“What?”

“Naked, handcuffed to the bed.”

“You had sex with him and took pictures?”

“Oui. Well, more pictures than sex. I told him I’ll send them to his editor – and his parents – if he prints dirt about Scott.”

“You’re in the pictures? Doesn’t that compromise you, too?”

“Not really. There’s not much of me in the pictures. Only parts most people wouldn’t recognize.”

“Okay, this I’ve got to see.”

“Adam!”

“Show me the pictures.”

“Somehow this conversation is not going the way I thought it would.”

“Hey, if anyone shows up on my doorstep and says they blackmailed someone with X-rated pictures, they have to show me the pictures. It’s a house rule.”

Jean-Paul laughed, but he started to dig in his bag for the camera. “This is serious business, you know. I committed a felony.”

“I know. I’m taking it seriously. Mostly. I was going to flee the country with you when I thought you’d committed murder. Do I get points for that?”

“Oui. Lots of points. Did you mean it?”

“What do you think? Did I sound like I meant it?”

“Oui. You sounded deadly serious. And very resourceful. All ready to find out the best way to be fugitives together. I was impressed.”

“That’s how I always am when I think you’ve murdered someone. It’s just something that never came up before.”

“Quite a gesture of loyalty to an ex-partner.”

“Yeah, well we should talk about that. But first show me the pictures.” Jean-Paul handed over the camera and Adam paged through them. “They’re pretty hot,” Adam said, after a while.

“Merci. I think. I didn’t come here to have my skills as a porn photographer critiqued.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I am taking this seriously now.”

“Bien.”

“I’m worried, Jean-Paul. Are you sure he won’t call the police?”

“I’m sure. He doesn’t want these pictures to get out. He’ll do what I told him to.”

“Maybe not. You’re threatening his livelihood. He might worry that he’ll lose his job if you send the pictures, but he could lose it for not writing the X-Men story, too, you know?”

Jean-Paul shook his head. “He can write the story. I told him that. I said it’s fine to do more of the anti-X-Men, anti-mutant ones, like he did about the service. It’s the personal stuff I told him he couldn’t print, the stuff about Scott.”

“What does he know? Did you find out?”

Jean-Paul nodded. “He knows about Scott's time as a hustler. He thinks the Vermont birth certificate story is real. He thinks the story is ‘Billionaire Mutant with Illegitimate Son’ and 'X-Men Leader Former Teenage Prostitute.' He was going to look for Maria Summers. This way he stops before he finds out she isn’t real.”

“That’s good. Very good. So he can still print the rest of the story. That keeps him motivated to comply. He’s got something to lose if he doesn’t comply and not much to lose if he does. If he’s told his editor a bit about Scott, he can just say the story didn’t pan out, but you haven’t stopped him altogether. I think you did it just right.”

“I know.” Neither said anything for a minute. “I think the war made a difference, too.”

“The war?”

“I’ve generally been a pretty law abiding sort, you know? At least in this country. I certainly didn’t feel bound by the laws in Belarus. Or a whole lot of other places I went on assignment. Lots of places I was worried about not getting caught breaking laws, not about breaking them. But here...” He shook his head, then continued. “Then we lived outside the law for a while, because of the war. Xavier’s was destroyed, all those people we knew were locked up, because of the war. Walter died because of the war. It changes your point of view. Home doesn’t feel so different from other countries.” He shrugged. “I’m not saying Rick Kapell’s investigation of Scott has anything to do with the war, really. It just changed my point of view, is all I’m saying.”

“Je sais. Moi aussi. I’m not used to working outside the law. With Alpha Flight, we were the law, hein? I don’t know I would have considered doing this a year ago.”

“A year ago I think I would have been identifying with Rick a whole lot more. He’s just trying to do his job, get a story. That could be me, you know. I’m pretty dogged when I’m working, I don’t let anyone dissuade me.”

“You wouldn’t print what he wants to. You’ve decided not to write things before, when publishing would hurt us.”

“I know. Like you said before, it’s a question of where your loyalties lie. I know where mine do. I believe in a free press. I believe in some other things more.” They looked at each other. “Jean-Paul?”

“Oui.”

“I want to do that,” he said, pointing to the picture displayed on the camera. “With you. Preferably without pictures and blackmail.”

“How about handcuffs?”

“Handcuffs would be okay.”

“Unfortunately, I seem to have left mine in Rick’s apartment. On Rick’s wrists.”

“Oh well. You can’t have everything.”

Jean-Paul leaned in and kissed Adam, sucking on his tongue, stroking his hair. He pulled back after a minute. “I think we should talk, Adam,” he said, “before we do anything else.”

“I agree.” Neither of them said anything for a minute. “Only we’re not talking,” Adam said after a while. “You’re right. We need to. I don’t want to just have sex and... have everything still so unresolved.”

“Moi non plus. That’s what we did last time. It didn’t feel good, afterwards. I don’t know what to say, though.”

“Me, neither.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, I do. I have something to say.” He paused for a minute, then began, “Jean-Paul, I’m not a brave person.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Shut up. I came up with something to say. Listen to me for a minute, okay?”

“D’accord.”

“I’ve always been kind of a coward, pretty risk averse. It’s kept me alive sometimes, when I’ve been working in war zones. Instinct for self-preservation is good. But fear can get out of hand. I don’t want to let it rule me. It has too often." He took a deep breath. "I love you, Jean-Paul Beaubier.” Taking Jean-Paul’s hand, he continued. “I’ve been afraid. Afraid to try to rebuild a relationship after all we did that hurt each other. Afraid you couldn’t forgive me for Jake. Not just that. Afraid you couldn’t accept that I can’t cut off all contact with him. And I can’t. I’m not going to do that again. If you and I... well, if we got back together, I wouldn’t promise again not to talk to him. It’s over between him and me, I can promise you that. I won’t have sex with him; I won’t be alone with him. I could promise to tell you any time I spoke to him, if that would help. I can promise I’ll tell you everything we said, but not to have nothing to do with him again.” He sighed. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“I understand about Jake. It was wrong of me to tell you not to speak to him in the first place. I wouldn’t do that again. If we got back together. You want to?”

Adam nodded. “I decided something. I was just trying to figure out how to tell you, and how to ask you. I left a message for you, to call me when you got back to Xavier’s. Partly that was because I found something out, something we need to talk about. But mostly it was because I decided something.”

Adam paused, took a deep breath and continued. “I decided that I can be the man I want to be. He – the man I want to be – he’s not a coward. He’s willing to take a chance for something important. He’s willing to talk to you after you’ve been with another man all weekend – because that’s what I thought was happening – and ask you to take him back. He’s willing to try again to rebuild what we had. He’s scared shitless, mind you, that you’ll tell him you like the other guy better. Or that you’ll be willing to try but it will all go wrong and he’ll be hurt all over again. Still, he’s brave enough to try even though he’s really, really scared. That’s who I want to be.”

“Adam.” Jean-Paul shook his head. “You are brave. He’s who you always have been.”

“No, I’m not brave. But I’m trying to be. I love you. I will be faithful to you and I will work so hard with you to build the relationship we both want and need. I will come up with a job in New York, so we can live there together, now that you’re an X-Man. And I’ll follow you if you need to go somewhere else. Like if you murder somebody and have to flee the country. I want us to be lovers again, and partners. I miss you so much. I miss us. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. If you’ll still have me.”

“Oui. Un seul homme. C’est toi, Adam.”

“It’s hard to believe you’d take me back after all that happened.”

“I am as constant as the northern star.”

Adam smiled. “Can I suck your cock now?”

“S’il te plait.”

They kissed again as Adam unzipped him. And then Adam was on the floor, holding Jean-Paul’s hard cock, licking up and down. “Did you come in his mouth?” he asked.

“No. I didn’t come when I was with him.”

“Saving it for me?”

“I didn’t know I was, but oui.”

Adam took the head in his mouth, sucking and licking. Fingers moving up and down the shaft, tongue stroking. Jean-Paul’s hands were in his hair. He was talking to him, whispering endearments in French as Adam bobbed up and down. The taste and the feel of Jean-Paul’s cock in his mouth was so completely what he needed right then. Adam sucked harder, moved faster, took him deeper as his lover encouraged him with words dissolving into incoherent sounds. As Jean-Paul came deep inside his throat Adam had one clear thought.

He stayed on the floor there afterwards, head in Jean-Paul’s lap.

“Did I hurt you? I think I pulled your hair too hard.”

“No, it was fine. Jean-Paul?”

“Oui.”

“I was thinking something, when you came. Just really clear. This one thought in my head. ‘This is what I want – only him.’ It was like it all made sense or something.”

“It makes sense to me, too, mon ami.” He pulled Adam up onto his lap. “Do you want to move to the bedroom?”

“The socks. It just looks funny.” Adam was standing there, naked except for socks. Jean-Paul held his lover’s hard cock for a minute. “I’m more interested in this,” he said, “but why are you wearing socks?”

Adam shook his head. “God, I got so distracted. Murder, blackmail, sex. I forgot to tell you.” He shook his head again. “We’ll get back to sex. After socks.” Jean-Paul laughed again. “Perhaps no more murder or blackmail talk, though?”

“D’accord.”

“Okay, why socks?” he continued. “Because my feet are too distracting without them. I couldn’t sleep.” As Jean-Paul looked at him quizzically, Adam pulled off a sock. His lover’s expression changed from puzzled to surprised as Adam’s foot appeared. It was neon green, glowing in the lamplight.

“How?”

“Ezra. He was the one who manifested. Jean was right. That’s his gift – color changing. Hank wasn’t turning blue; Ezra was turning Hank blue. And changing a few things different colors.”

“Esti!”

“Exactly. I figured it out, but I wanted to make sure I was right. Idiot that I am, I told him to do this,” he added, gesturing at his feet. “And then tried all day to get him to understand that I want them changed back. Toddler communication drives me nuts sometimes. I put him to bed, finally, figured I’ll try again tomorrow.”

YES!!!!!

This Logan is too much, but in a good way. Once again Logan knows Scott to a T, he knew that he would be completely wound up after meeting Alex and would probably want someone to speak before being bombarded at the mansion. Love the fact that he didn't ask a lot of questions and just let it flow at Scott's own pace and he obviously appreciates it. Hey I said that thing in a previous post that Alex's kept acknowledging Scott and his parents as my parents, mother, father but tried to correct himself.

Now finally they got back together 'bout bloody time. Adam was willing to be a fugutive on the run with J-P now that's devotion. The different levels of emotion through their dialogue confusion, scared, worried, happy etc. Ending it on a great note though the whole Ezra thing too hilarious.

Re: YES!!!!!

That's one thing about your fics is that it is heavily about relationship and love and blah blah but it never reaches that level of mushiness that some fics tend to go towards. This is not to say I don't like mushiness sometimes, but the transitions og moving towards mushiness and then shifting gear to another topic is done extremely well.

Re: YES!!!!!

I am sooooo not romantic by nature. Scott and Logan are the level I'm really comfortable with for romance - they have a strong bond ( including sex, affection, admiration, respect); they're very funny together; they don't say "I love you" a lot and when they do there's usually a kind of humorous twist to how it's said. They trust each other with their lives; they tell each other things they'd tell no one else, but they're not all hearts-and-flowersy about it. As Oliver said at one point, they're more like best friends than lovers.

I think Jean-Paul and Adam are very romantic people so I write them as such, but I'd throw up :-) if not for being able to relieve romance with humor.

YAAaaaaaaaaaaaY!

*coughs*Um... yes, Scott/Logan nice and very THEM. Although since I watched the first movie today, they are scarily mature in this section in comparison to the movie. But given everything that has happened to them it isn't too surprising.

J-P and Adam... thank you for not breaking them up for good, the whole bit where Adam is putting his clever, analytical side to work thinking about getting his 'family' away is just wonderful.And then getting emotional revelations when giving J-P a blow-job! Bloody barmy, the pair of them!

Also am glad J-P acknowledges that what he did was a) a crime and b) morally wrong.And the discussion about what the consequences are likely to be was a nice touch.

And the green feet mean that I can now go away and make my dinner with a happy face! I can see that Ezra is going to be lots of fun to be around for the next couple of years *evil grin* they could hire him out to decorators, no need to re-paint things, just change the colour! Nice one.

Re: YAAaaaaaaaaaaaY!

Scott/Logan nice and very THEM. Although since I watched the first movie today, they are scarily mature in this section in comparison to the movie. But given everything that has happened to them it isn't too surprising.